


Unbroken

by VanillaMostly



Category: Tintenwelt-Trilogie | Inkheart Trilogy - Cornelia Funke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brianna finally wakes up from four years of emo-ness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbroken

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-Inkdeath... so contains spoilers from Inkspell and Inkdeath. Won't make much sense either if you haven't read Inkspell.

Unbroken

 

_It was said that she wore a coin with Cosimo's picture around her neck and kissed it so often that by now the face could hardly be made out._

**

 

"Brianna, Brianna!  Didn't you hear me?"

 

Jacopo was pulling her hair again, as he often liked to do in the past.  Whereas before she would have yelped in pain and pinched the little brat's ears in return, now she barely felt the tug.

 

"Later, Jacopo," said Brianna. She was in the middle of folding Violante's clothes on her mistress's bed.  "After I'm done."

 

He climbed onto the bed, kicking over the piles of dresses Brianna had just washed onto the floor.  "Now you're done, aren't you?" he asked, stooping down to her.  His cruel sneer looked out of place on a child's face.  But perhaps he wasn't a child anymore.  Wasn't he nine now, or ten?  She'd stopped keeping track of time, but that didn't mean time stopped passing for her.  Her brother Jehan's voice was already changing, and her mother's hair had more gray in it now, though she laughed and smiled so often these days she looked younger than Brianna herself.

 

Brianna didn't reply.  She bent down and began picking up the clothes she would now have to wash again.  If Violante had been here she would have yelled at her son, told him to get out or else she'll tell the cook not to bring dinner for him today.  But Violante had left this morning, saying vaguely she'll be out for a while.  _Shall I go with you?_ Brianna had asked, and Violante had looked strangely red in the face when she said a hasty _no_.

 

"Are you mad, Bri?" Jacopo asked into the silence.

 

She paused in picking up the clothes.  Something in his voice reminded her of the snot-nosed little boy she met when she first came to the castle.  A boy who, despite his constant tantrums, just wanted to be loved.  His fault was, he tried to get that love by force.  Maybe it was the only way he knew how.

 

"I'm not," she said.  It was the truth.  She didn't feel anger anymore.  She didn't feel much else, either.

 

"Then why won't you look at me?"

 

The way he said it was so honest, so innocent, and so unlike Jacopo.  She raised her head and looked at him, but had to look away almost instantly.  She has heard what they say: the maids, Tullio the page, the people on the streets.  That Jacopo looked more and more like his father everyday.

 

It was as if he could hear her unspoken thoughts.  "My father's dead," Jacopo said, and the harshness was back in his voice.  "My mother's forgotten him.  The people here have forgotten him.  Some even blame him.  They say half the land wouldn't be covered in graves if it weren't for him.  You see, he was about as useless in life as he is in death."  He leapt off the bed, and in one smooth motion he had his hand on her neck. He was so close Brianna could feel his breath hot on her ear.  "Is this thing the reason you're the only one who can't forget him?"

 

He found what she thought she had hid so well all this time, and pulled.  She tried to push him away, but it was too late.  The clasp broke easily in his greedy small fingers, and the glass beads burst into the air like water droplets.

 

She saw it on the ground and reached for it, but Jacopo got there first.  "So you really do have it," he said, examining the object in his hand.  "But the rumors are wrong.  This isn't a gold coin with my father's face on it.  It's just a piece of rock.  What's that mark on it, though?"

 

She snatched, but missed.  The boy was quick as a slippery fish.  "Give it back, Jacopo."

 

"Why?" he said mockingly.  "So you can caress it in your sleep when you dream of my father?  Did he give you this as a token of his love?  I must say, I expected more of him.  This necklace is cheaper than the trash they sell in peasants' markets."

 

Before Brianna realized what she was doing, she had already done it.  Jacopo staggered back, looking at her with the same amount of shock she herself felt.  He reached a hand to his cheek.  "You... hit me!"

 

She was breathing hard.  Her heart was thudding so loudly in her chest she thought it might explode.  She snatched the stone from Jacopo's hand; he didn't resist this time.

 

"Don't you dare call this 'trash,'" she said, and she was amazed at the strength and loudness of her voice. " _You're_ the trash, to speak of your own father like that.  So what if he hasn't been here for you all these years?  So what if he's done things he can't be proud of?  So what if he left you, your mother, your sister without saying a word?  He's your father!"

 

"I don't have a sister," said Jacopo, staring at her with wide eyes.

 

Brianna turned away.  She was shaking as she closed her hand around the stone.  It was round and gray, no different from any other pebble you'd see in the forest or near a river.  Except for what was marked on the back with a couple etched scratches.  _Look, I told the fairies to write your name, and there it is, in their language_. _Doesn't it look just like your favorite flower?_

 

In answer, she had flung the necklace back at the speaker's face.  She wanted to hurt him, wanted to see him cry.  But of course he did none of that.  He had only smiled that smile Brianna could never read, no matter how hard she tried, and said, _Do you not like it?  Very well, I'll just have to bring you back a better present next time._ That night, when she heard his deep breathing in slumber, she crept out of the tent and spent nearly an hour searching the grass in the dark until she found the necklace.  She tucked it carefully into a wad of her socks where she kept all the other presents she had rejected from him.

 

There it stayed for several years, and she would have forgotten about it if it hadn't fallen out while she was packing up her clothes to go off to the castle.  By that time, she could barely picture the face of the person who had given her the present.  But on impulse she looped the necklace around her neck, rubbing the small stone between her fingers.  It wasn't like he was ever coming back, she thought bitterly.  What did her pride matter now?  And without a warning, the floodgate broke.  Her tears came pouring out as if they were carried by an ocean tide.  She had to bite down on her sleeve to muffle the sound so no one could hear her.

 

The sound of someone sniffling brought Brianna back to the present, where she stood in Violante's chamber.  With a start, Brianna realized the sound was coming from herself.  She was too dumbfounded to even bother with wiping her eyes.  She thought she had cried out all her tears by now.

 

"Brianna?" asked Jacopo hesitantly.  "Are you..."

 

He trailed off, as the door opened just at that moment.  Violante strode in, or more like floated in; there was an odd spring to her steps. "Oh, Brianna, do please tell me another story about - "

 

The smile slid off her face when she took in the scene.

 

"You brat," she snapped, rounding on her son.  "What did you do to - "

 

"No, no," said Brianna quickly, stepping between Violante and Jacopo.  Tears were still falling down her cheeks, but it was the weirdest sensation because for the first time in a very, very long time, Brianna never felt lighter, so light she could fly.  "It's - just a misunderstanding."  She cried harder, and laughed harder.  "A big misunderstanding."

 

Through her blurred, tear-filled vision, the world had never been so clear.  She saw past Violante's concerned frown, probably doubting Brianna's sanity... and saw instead her bright pink dress, such a contrast to her old black frocks, that Violante's skin seemed to glow with color from it.  When had that happened?  Judging from the laundry Jacopo had kicked to the floor, a while ago.  Why had Brianna not noticed?  And... and, Violante's birthmark!  It was like it had never been there.  Her mistress's eyes have also lost their cold, lonely look.  How much has been happening that Brianna hadn't been aware of?

 

It was like all the emotions she thought she couldn't feel anymore, after Cosimo's death ( _yes, his death!_ ), had been freed from their imprisonment, and were now overflowing, filling her to the brim.  Suddenly she threw her arms around Violante and gripped her close, like she used to hold her mother when she was Jacopo's age and had just woken up from a bad dream.  "I missed you," whispered Brianna.

 

"I... I missed you too," Violante said back, sounding bewildered.  But she hugged her back.  "Are you alright?"

 

Brianna leaned back and smiled.  Her cheeks felt stiff, not accustomed to such a movement after so long.  "Yes, I'm alright.  I'm great."  _I'm here_ , is what she wanted to say, but she wasn't sure if Violante would understand.

 

A hand tugged at Brianna's skirt.  Jacopo looked up at her, his expression defiant and rueful as ever, but a dull flush covered his cheeks.  "I'm sorry about your necklace," he muttered, not meeting her gaze.

 

Brianna let go of Violante and bent down so she was on Jacopo's eye level.  My, how tall he has gotten! In a few years he'll be past her height.  He might be even taller than - than Cosimo.  Yes, Cosimo.  She loved him.  She really did.  Or perhaps she only loved the image of that handsome pirnce riding through the castle gates, the valiant figure from the songs her mother would sing to her when she was little.

 

"What does it matter now?"  She was facing Jacopo when she said that, but she really spoke it to herself.  She opened her hand.  The little rock her father - her father! - had given her laid on her palm.  Dustfinger never did ask her just why the flower he had so clumsily drawn on the stone was her favorite.  And she'll never tell him that it was because they looked like the fire blossoms he would conjure her with a graceful flick of his fingers.  Because they reminded her of him, in those days when he was gone.

 

Which was why now she doesn't need them, or this piece of rock... Since he was back this time.  Back for good.  And so was the little girl who used to chase after him.  Brianna hadn't lost her after all.


End file.
